Tuesday, July 9, 2013

The hookup got hot and wild, and one of the two men whipped out his cellphone to shoot a video of the room-to-room romp with the woman they'd just met that night.

The sex video may have been the only thing that saved the two from prison.

The woman accused them of rape. The video showed otherwise, police and prosecutors said. What happened that night led to the vicious beating of one of the men two days later.

Last Friday, a Sacramento Superior Court jury convicted Jasmine Levanna Kurre of felony assault likely to produce great bodily injury and of another count of felony battery.

Jurors acquitted Kurre of the misdemeanor filing of a false police report and of another felony count of robbing the beating victim of his cellphone.

Unfortunately for Kurre, 27, the man's friend shot the video, showing her laughing and carrying on with the two alleged rapists – hence, the lack of charges against them and the lodging of the misdemeanor false-report accusation.

"This is great stuff," Citrus Heights Police Detective Ron Pfleger told the man who shot the video, according to a transcript of his interview five days after the Feb. 17, 2011, beating of his friend, outside the assault victim's apartment. "This is exactly what you guys are hoping for."

Had it not been for the video, the chances were likely that Kurre's rape accusation against the two men would have been given more credibility by police and prosecutors.

Instead, it turned the tables on Kurre, who now is looking at the possibility of four years behind bars.

"The case was complicated and emotionally charged," Deputy District Attorney Erin Blake said in a statement. "The jury worked hard, and ultimately justice was served."

Assistant Public Defender Crystal Lamb declined to comment on the case, and Kurre, who was remanded into custody, turned down an interview at the downtown jail.

According to transcripts of police interviews with the participants, the two men met a girlfriend of Kurre's on Jan. 20, 2011, at a Citrus Heights club called Liquid. The Bee is not identifying the two men because the attackers remain at large.

That night, one of the men exchanged phone numbers with Kurre's girlfriend, and a few weeks later they all agreed to go out.

They met at the second man's apartment on Feb. 15, 2011, went out to the Glass Turtle in Roseville, then returned to his place.

The first man told police that Kurre "ended up kissing me," before they ended up having sex in the bathroom. It was then that he made the video.

They went upstairs to a bedroom for more sex-on-tape. Later, Kurre turned her affections on the other man and went to a bedroom with him, according to the first man. He said she then bounced back to him and they spent the night together.

There didn't appear to be any animosity among the parties when they woke up in the morning, according to the transcripts.

A day later, the second man said Kurre called him because she forgot her driver's license in his apartment, as well as a hair extension that came off. She said she'd be by at 6 p.m. to pick them up. When she showed up, he met her outside with her driver's license and hair, according to the transcripts.

He told police that Kurre stood with her arms folded when he walked toward her. Somebody grabbed him from behind and somebody else punched him. "Then the guy that was holding me hits me and then they continued to hit me and hit me."

It lasted five to seven minutes, he said, estimating that he absorbed 55 to 60 punches and kicks and wound up with fractured ribs and a bad bruise behind is ear.

"You think you can rape my girl?" one of the attackers screamed, the victim told police.

"I didn't rape your girl," he said he told the man.

He called police.

She went to police the next day and offered her version of what happened in the apartment.

At first, "We went into (his) house and everyone was just chit-chatting," Kurre said, "and I was talking about my boyfriend, and I was talking about him and his work and everything."

He "made us drinks, and we first took a shot, and then he made us these pink drinks," she said.

Then, "I was getting bored," and the two men "took pictures of the women, fully clothed, "because me and (her girlfriend) looked really cute."

Kurre said they went to the Glass Turtle and stayed there about five minutes before they returned to the apartment, "when all the bad stuff started happening."

She said she went to the bathroom to use it when one of the men broke in and raped her. She said the man who lived in the house also raped her.